The best laptops for photography: Photoshop like a pro from anywhere

Sure, you might have a laptop that can run Photoshop like nobody’s business, but is it really everything a photographer needs? Your laptop might have excess features irrelevant to a photo guru, or there could be some essential qualities that you don’t even realize you’re missing. Picking out the best laptop for photography enthusiasts is a tough task, but we have compiled a handful of the best options here.

The best laptops for photography are those that have a distinctive set of qualities — excellent graphics capabilities, ample ports for importing content and displaying it to external displays or devices, and storage space that can more than handle your growing gigabytes of digital masterpieces. Whether your laptop stays put on your desk, eagerly anticipating your next graphic design creation, or whether it goes toe-to-toe with you and your digital SLR away in the wilderness and out on the town, these best-in-class options will no doubt prove their worth as some of the best laptops for photography.

Macbook Pro with Retina Display

The Macbook Pro Retina (pictured above) is an obvious choice for photographers. When it comes to creative professionals and photography-loving laptop buyers, the default position is to turn to Apple. Of course, if you want Apple notebooks that will bring the most power to your photo editing sessions, you have to go with the unmatched resolution of the Retina Display. With more than five million pixels on the 15-inch model (four million for the 13-inch), the Macbook Pro with Retina easily earns its keep on the list of the best laptops for photography.

It’s not just about the pixels, though. The Macbook Pro also has industry-leading battery life and it can save, load, copy, and manipulate files with lightning speed to its all-flash storage (so long as you stick with the Retina models). If you plan on buying within the next few days you should keep in mind that the MacBook Pro has not yet been updated to Intel’s Haswell processors, so the systems are technically a generation behind. There is no date announced for the update yet, but it could happen any day now.

Lenovo ThinkPad W530

There are, of course, many options outside the realm of Apple. One prime example is the Lenovo ThinkPad W530. Defined in the category of “workstation” rather than the plebian-sounding “laptop,” Lenovo’s W530 is a great laptop for photography professionals because of, among other things, its impressive slate of industry certifications. It has been certified by independent software vendors (ISVs) for proven performance and stability with more than 120 applications that are central to content editing and creating. In addition, X-Rite Pantone color calibration is an available option for greater image accuracy and color matching. And for good measure, it also has Dolby Home Theater v4 audio technology in case you’re also into videography.

One of the other great features of the ThinkPad W530 is the number of ports and inputs it has. With a total of four USB ports, a built-in 4-in-1 SD card reader, a mini DisplayPort, and mini HDMI connectivity, you’ll have no problems getting your photos into or out of this powerhouse, placing it solidly in our list of best laptops for photography.